Video and Text By Nicholas-Martin Kearney
Rock – step – triple-step.
Rock – step – triple-step.
Say it often enough and soon your feet begin to move in rhythm: Rock – step – triple-step, Rock – step – triple-step.
And that is a basic step of the Lindy Hop, a social dance that is seeing resurgence in popularity, especially among a younger generation.
The Wolf Pack Swing Dance Club at the University of Nevada, Reno will present a Lindy Hop Workshop with Matt Richey on Saturday, April 9 from 1-5 p.m. in the Rotunda of the Mathewson-IGT Knowledge Center.
The cost is $15 for students and $25 for non-students. No experience is required and no partner is needed. Mr. Richey is an award-winning, internationally-recognized swing dancer from Nevada City, California. Read more below.
The Lindy Hop is a style of Swing Dance popularized in Harlem during the 1920s-30s. The black community combined elements of African dance with jazz music creating The Lindy Hop, a new type of partner social dance that quickly grew in appeal.
Its early novelty was the 8-count “swing out” from a closed to an open position, where partners would separate and improvise for a few steps. This innovation is often thought to be the key difference between the East Coast Swing style, which opted for a 6-count “swing-out” instead of the 8-count version, and the West Coast Swing style.
It was felt that more participation would be had by novice dancers in a 6-count variation, and the more “refined” version was created for instruction in a dance studio setting.
The Wolf Pack Swing Dance Club will host a 4-week Lindy Hop II series of lessons on Thursdays at 7:30pm in the Rotunda of the Mathewson-IGT Knowledge Center.
For more info contact [email protected].
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